I knew I'd love this book as soon as I read the title, but I wasn't prepared for exactly how much. I found the historical aspect of the book fascinating and I actually learned a lot more than I expected to. As a reflection on the modern obsession with butts, this is an excellent look into who we are and what fuels our collective preferences.

This was a fascinating, thoughtful, impeccably-researched, and highly relatable look into...the butt. It never felt dry or boring.

What a fascinating read! The cover and title are interesting and eye-catching. I also love the cheeky subtitle. I wasn't entirely sure what to expect in terms of content, but I loved that this book, tonally, was interesting in understanding why we have such strong feelings about our butts. Plain and simple, butts have become a ~thing.~ People are interested in butts and assigning value based on them. The cultural origins and implications of such judgments are surprising, and infuriating, and may induce a large sigh. The introduction was particularly relatable and thought-provoking.

I really enjoyed this and learned a lot from it. I knew butts had power and racial, economic, and cultural implications, but I didn't quite know the depths of those implications. Highly recommend it.

This was definitely fun and a good readalike for fans of Mary Roach. My feelings about it waxed and waned a little with each chapter. Some were covering topics in a way that felt a little shallow (especially the science-oriented beginning). Others were really interesting (like the eugenic models Normman and Norma). And at times I was hoping the chapter would say something new/substantial about a very well-trod subject, like Kim Kardashian's butt. Still, the author did a great job of finding sources who had interesting things to say, especially about Miley Cyrus. Still, with the way so many things about butts are tied to anti-fatness and white supremacy, I kept wondering how some of these chapters would have come out with someone could could write with a little more authority on the topic.

Let’s just get this out of the way: yes, that title is brilliant.

Butts: A Backstory is a deep dive into our cultural fascination in the West with butts, and specifically women’s butts. Heather Radke—a curvy, queer white woman—wanted to know why we’re so hooked on butts, and because she’s a journalist, naturally she wants all of us to know why too. Frankly, I’m glad. Thanks to NetGalley and Avid Reader Press for the eARC in exchange for a review.

Radke quickly rejects evolutionary psychological explanations for our obsession with butts. She thoroughly explains why evolutionary psychology, unlike evolutionary biology, is unreliable and pseudoscientific. While we have plenty of possible theories for the adaptive value of the butt, its role in sexual selection might forever be occluded by that pesky thing called culture.

So Radke investigates how, in Western society at least, we started to care so much about what was behind us. She begins the story in South Africa and London, tracing the life as best she can of Sarah Baartman, a Khoe woman who became better known as the “Venus Hottentot.” Is it any surprise that our obsession with butts is wrapped up in Europe’s history of white supremacy? Of course not. For centuries now, white Europeans have sought to hypersexualize and dehumanize people of African descent. Therefore it is no coincidence that big butts became associated with Black people while the ideal—embodied, of course, by white people—was a flat, more demure behind.

From this inauspicious beginning, Radke moves through the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Much of our journey centres upon fashion: the bustle, changing hemlines, the flappers, etc. Some of it, too, is rooted in celebrity and media, from the starlets of the early twentieth century to the models and music videos of the nineties. Exercise fads and diets come and go. The one constant? Change. Sometimes big butts are in, sometimes out. The message, however, is the same: for women, your butt is a synecdoche. A sign of how well you meet your generation’s ideal of femininity.

Radke echoes this in some of her personal anecdotes throughout the book. She would tag along, as a young girl, on her mother’s shopping mall trips. Changing room try-ons and the betrayals of clothes—or bodies. For, you see, that’s how Radke reports her mother framing the situation, language that she then inherited: my butt is too big. Never that the clothes are wrong, but rather her body is wrong. Whoa.

So of course I thought about my body. All my life I have had thin privilege, have never had to contend with being called or understood to be fat. Most of my problems with clothes not fitting are a result of my height rather than waist, hips, or weight. As an asexual person, I didn’t really pay much attention to others’ bodies, and I never thought of myself as a sexual being—and because, for the first thirty years of my life, we all thought I was a man, most of the world seemed content to let that be the case.

I thought my issues with my body came largely from how it was changing as my metabolism slowed. Then I realized no, it was because deep down I knew my body didn’t match with my idea of who I am, especially my gender.

Transition, then, has done wonders for my confidence in my body. But the euphoria I feel from how my body changes—hair growing, skin softening, curves emerging—is also accompanied by the unease that many women feel in our society. I want curves because I want to feel more feminine, yes, but surely some of my desire for a curvy booty comes from internalized ideas of beauty from my coming-of-age in the first decade of the twenty-first century.

So here I am in this liminal space of wanting to accept my body as it is yet also wanting to change it. Therefore, despite the butt holding very little fascination for me as a symbol of sexual attraction, I definitely understand the hold it has over us as a symbol of femininity, of my femininity. Reading Butts has helped me think about my body against the backdrop of our wider cultural and historical zeitgeist.

This is a thoughtful, thorough treatment of a topic that many might dismiss as childish or prurient. Their loss. I might not be enamoured with butts, but I was enamoured with Butts.

This was an excellent read. For all the *AHEM* cheekiness of parts of this book, this isn't just a fun book to read about butts; this is quite a look at the history of the backside, and why its both vilified and loved and used for sex and censure and the way it all ties into the roots of the slave trade.
This is the kind of book that I love to read. Enough fun [and funny] parts to make one laugh, but then you dive into the seriousness of the topic and it is all about learning and being SHOCKED at some of the things you are learning and then just WOW.

A really great history lesson, a lesson in modern views of the butt and how it all still ties in together and affects us all.

Just a note: the author talks about her issues with her own bigger butt and her struggle with jeans/pants and the such and I have to say, I FELT THIS ALL SO DEEPLY. Buying jeans has never been anything but an afternoon of frustration and tears and it was so refreshing to know that there are other people who struggle with the very thing that can reduce me to a tantrum throwing 2 year old. It was so refreshing to read something that is so private in such a transparent way.
Very well done. I loved every second of this book.

Thank you to NetGalley, Heather Radke, and Avid Reader Press/Simon and Schuster for providing this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

The peach emoji on the book's cover places the work firmly in this time in history. Though this emoji as caricature of the human backside is meant to be humorous, and frequently sexualized, this book takes its subject seriously. This is a thoroughly researched, thoroughly considered microhistory of the butt, with special attention to how women's butts are culturally perceived and represented.

[Thanks to Avid Reader Press and NetGalley for an opportunity to read an advanced reader copy and share my opinion of this book.]

Was delighted to include this original take in “The Best Books to Gift This Holiday,” the big seasonal holiday gift books package in The Globe and Mail, Canada’s national newspaper (Nov 19 print edition, also online).

I really like non fiction books that are centered around one specific theme. And this one was no different. It's definitely a short read considering the author tried her best at touching on so many different topics (from biology to exercise to pop culture): it's definitely ambitious. And it doesn't quite work as an end-all-be-all, but fortunately the author was aware of that as well going into it.

I thought the more scientific chapters were interesting, but they felt a bit info dump-y. I enjoyed the chapters on history and pop culture way more, because I could relate to it more, having read about the topic or having seen and lived it. It focusses primarily on the VS, which at times I didn't really connect with, but it didn't leave very big holes of a lack of information for me.

Radke's personal anecdotes were relatable to me, being a woman with a big butt as well, and I think many a person that has dealt with the struggles of the pressure to conform to an ideal or trend related to the (female) body can do so as well. Besides that, I just really appreciated the feminist and political touches.

Thank you, NetGalley, for providing me with an eARC. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Loved! Such an interesting concept of the sexualization, mediability and fashion of butts. Would definitely recommend!

Butts: A Backstory by Heather Radke was such an interesting history! Definitely worth the read. I do want to say that this was clearly a very white priveledge way in looking at this history.

While the title and cover come across as tongue-in-cheek (🙈😜), the historical and cultural understandings of the derrière are really quite complex. Radke unpacks how so much racial and gendered value, shame, and symbolism got placed on the backsides of women.

Really enjoyed this one as an accessible, nightstand anthropological read. This is the type of nonfiction I love that’s just a random, leisurely ride to explore an interesting topic. It’s the type of book that will drop some random tidbits of knowledge on you for later use at a dinner party or jeopardy tryouts. It's sweeps across the last few centuries in under 300 pages, so you'll learn about Sarah Baartman (the "Hottentot Venus") and bustles, but also J. Lo's and Kim K.'s historical significance. In that sense, this book is not a robust, "deep dive" sociological read, but would be really enticing to a newer nonfiction reader who is also in to pop culture references.

I would recommend this for anyone who is looking to expand their nonfiction reading beyond memoirs and try some topical nonfiction. It’s juuuuuust academic enough that I remember learning some of this history in my Gender & Women’s studies classes, but this was honestly more fun than the assigned reading!

Butts. Love 'em or hate 'em, we all got 'em. And whether we're consciously aware of it or not, butts come with a loaded (no pun intended) history and sociological connotation that has shaped the way we perceive and feel about our butts and others' butts. ⁠
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Heather Radke does an excellent job at laying bare the history of the derrière in the "western" world. From Sarah Baartman’s performances as the “Hottentot Venus” in 19th-century London to Victorian dress bustles and the flappers' barely-there backsides, all the way up to Kate Moss, Brazilian butt lifts, and Kim Kardashian, Radke profiles the ways in which the western world has been both fascinated with and appalled by the many profiles of our posteriors. And to round off our well-rounded subject, Radke also looks at the physiological nature of the butt. After all, is does have a functional purpose, too. She accomplishes this all with just enough sass and tongue-in-cheek humor - pretty much exactly what you'd hope for in a history of butts. ⁠
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I've been sitting on this one for a few months and can't wait for you to bounce around the ideas that Radke presents. Whether you're a connoisseur of the caboose or you'd prefer to hide your hiney, Butts: A Backstory will definitely get you thinking.

The peach emoji on this book's cover gave me the false impression that it could be a silly or gimmicky history of butts. To its credit, this book is not at all silly! Rather, Butts: A Backstory is an incredibly engrossing and thorough sociological investigation into the cultural significance of butts. Heather Radke takes an intersectional approach, proving that thoughts about butts in the culture at large are inseparable from racial stereotyping and patriarchal control. From Victorian-era freak shows to flappers to the eugenics movement... From drag queens to fashion standards to J.Lo & Kim Kardashian to twerking, Radke covers it all.

If you've ever had a crisis trying on pants in a fitting room OR if you hate that a body part you were born with has been so sexualized and criticized, then you will definitely enjoy this book! And, if that doesn't apply to you, then I think it's worth noting that this would honestly be perfect for fans of any sort of sociological deep dive.

Great and amusing work of non-fiction. The author approaches what could be in danger of being seen as a silly topic with a great degree of research, thought, and humor. Highly recommend

Butts a backstory covers everything from the Bustle to Sir Mix A Lot's Baby Got Back to the media's obsession with JLO's booty. This book covered a lot of ground and did a great job of contextually framing the butt based on the trends of the time. I wasn't engaged by every chapter but overall it was an enjoyable read that got me thinking about how I view my own body versus how the world views it, which I would argue was the whole point.

My thanks to both NetGalley and the publisher Avid Reader Press/ Simon & Schuster for an advance copy of this book focusing on body parts and its cultural significance.

Humans love to fixate on body parts. Songs, movies, dances, fashion all focused on a part of the body. The general question of most women to others while trying on dresses, does something look to big in this. Entire shelves of magazines in 7-11s and select stores with an adult theme devoted to body fixations. And mainstream magazines, and clickbait sites with a thousand hints about how to get a stronger tighter... Or more shapely... Or more social media crashing... Heather Radke in her well-rounded book Butts: A Backstory takes a look at what makes people so fixated, why songs are sung, social media mavens made, and why glutes are stared at, judged, and whistled at, and what it tells about us.

The book begins at the beginning or about 1.9 million years early with the fossils and bones showing the development of glutes in Homo Erectus. Glutes made it easier to walk around and deal with the flat environment, which gave these early humans a better chance at survival. We jump to England during the Geogrian era where from some reason backsides had become a huge thing in England. Clubs were fascinated by it, media papers had pictures of woman with large bottoms featured in articles and ads and the stage sensation was The Hottentott Venus, a woman from South Africa who was paraded in tight clothing to show off her body for leering and pinching depending on the price paid. From here the book looks at the rise of exercise for strengthening and tightening glutes, social media and other stars whose fame seems to end with their large ends and the societal impact.

Radke's book is both funny, and depressing. For every Sir Mix-a-Lot I can imagine people hating themselves for lacking what they feel society wants and or demands in women. Reading about the entertainers and what they put up with Beyoncé feeling fat cause of what the press was saying really drove home to me the way we make women feel in this great Land of the Free. However as disquieted as I felt sometimes I still enjoyed this book. I had never heard of some of the people discussed and never really thought of certain body parts in the way that the book pointed out, and found it interesting. Radke has a very nice style that educates even when it titillates, and offers a few personal stories that really drives some of the discussions home.

A different look at humans and what they are attracted to. Fans of Mary Roach will defiantly like this. Actually gifting this with Bonk! by Roach would make for a fun, and possibly interesting gift. Also for people who enjoy different kinds of history featuring biology science, and the oddness that are humans.

“Butts: A Backstory” was very informative. I wouldn’t say it had me hooked at every single part, I found the scientific/biological historical sections a little bit info-dumpy, but overall, those were balanced with the most interesting parts: the modern era cultural impact of the “big butts” in America’s society. The chapters about Sir Mix-a-Lot’s “Baby Got Back”, Jennifer Lopez’s butt obsession, Kate Moss’s experience while doing work for Calvin Klein and the 80’s rise of women’s aerobics video-mania were the parts I enjoyed most. This book focuses mostly on American population and social-cultural issues, so as a foreign myself, I did not find it that much relatable, it was an interesting piece of journalist investigation that I don’t regret having read. 3.5 stars.

Thanks to Avid Reader Press, Netgalley and the author for an ARC of this book - I am leaving this review voluntarily.

I have to say that this book was a really unexpected read for me - I am glad I picked it up and I really enjoyed most of it. I don't read a lot of Non-Fiction but this looked so interesting and I am a huge fan of history so the historical content and research really appealed to me.

There was a lot I liked and I would read anything by this author again - I felt that sometimes, especially towards the end of the book, that it was a bit repetitive. Having said that, this is kind of part social commentary and part academic study, which I am not used to, so maybe that's just the way these things are written.

Overall, an interesting book, certainly not dry and content that I will remember.

Butts perfectly threads the needle of tone and style that all too often betray fantastic concepts with poor execution. This is, of course, in my very subjective opinion. If you love well researched, thoughtful nonfiction that effortlessly blends history, pop culture, intersectional feminism, and personal memoir, I think you will love Butts.

Over all, I found this a much more cohesive and well written book than many others that I would group it with. Radke offered a depth of research and reflection that I often find lacking in this type of book, but her writing remained enjoyable and approachable.